Lead Software Engineer (Contract)

About Project Healthy Minds

Project Healthy Minds is a mental health nonprofit that runs like a tech startup. We are pioneering a first-of-its-kind model: applying technology to address one of the biggest social issues of our time: the growing mental health crisis. We believe in a simple but profound idea: that it should be as easy to find mental health services as it is to book a flight or a restaurant reservation. That's why we're building the world’s first digital marketplace for finding mental health services that are right for you.

To do that, we work with some of the most inspiring and influential leaders in America - business titans, tech entrepreneurs, clinicians and scientists, musicians, artists, athletes, media stars, policymakers, and more - because we believe that the world's most complex challenges require interdisciplinary teams and solutions.

We are backed by a powerhouse of industry-leading Board of Directors and Advisory Council Members who are passionate, hands-on, and dive into the important work with us.

Learn more at projecthealthyminds.com and @projecthealthyminds on social.

About The Role

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

The Principal Engineer is a core member of the product development team at Project Healthy Minds, responsible for designing and building the technical foundations of a data-intensive mental health services marketplace. This role exists to ensure we can reliably ingest, normalize, and power complex service data—enabling product experiences that help millions of people find mental health support that actually works.

How You'll Contribute

• Own and evolve the core technical architecture of the PHM platform, with a focus on data modeling, normalization, and performance
• Design and build LLM-driven workflows to acquire, structure, and maintain production-grade data from disparate sources
• Partner with external data providers to ingest data via APIs and feeds, while designing resilient systems to handle incomplete or inconsistent inputs
• Define schemas, normalization strategies, and data contracts that support reliable downstream product experiences
• Implement and optimize sorting, ranking, and retrieval logic to support discovery, comparison, and decision-making use cases
• Ship production code regularly, working hands-on across backend and data layers
• Apply modern AI tools and techniques to improve data enrichment, tagging, and internal workflows
• Partner closely with Product and Design to translate ambiguous product needs into scalable technical solutions
• Establish engineering standards through code reviews, documentation, and example
• Partner with Legal and other stakeholders on compliance-related technical decisions
• Support hiring and onboarding of additional senior engineers over time

Requirements

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with deep expertise in backend systems and data infrastructure
• Strong data modeling skills: experience designing schemas, normalization strategies, and data contracts for production systems
• Proficiency in Python or TypeScript for backend development
• Hands-on experience with data pipelines—ingesting, transforming, and normalizing data from APIs, feeds, and unstructured sources
• Familiarity with LLMs/AI tooling for data enrichment, classification, or extraction workflows (practical application, not just experimentation)
• Strong understanding of database technologies (relational and document stores) and query optimization
• Experience with cloud infrastructure (GCP preferred) and CI/CD practices
• Comfort operating in ambiguity—translating messy product requirements into clean technical solutions
• Strong communication skills; ability to explain technical tradeoffs to non-technical stakeholders
• Passion for the mental health space

NICE TO HAVE

• Experience with ranking, retrieval, or recommendation systems
• Background in marketplaces, healthcare data, or compliance-sensitive domains
• Familiarity with our stack (NextJS, GCP) is helpful but not required

WHY THIS IS A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY

• A world-class Board, Clinical Advisory Committee, supporters, and collaborators. We’ve assembled a truly best-in-class network across business, academia, and media -- working to help us reach our goals, and we’re still growing
• A big, bold vision with backing. To achieve our target scale of impact, we’re funded by a combination of private philanthropy and earned revenue. We are poised to continue our multi-year track record of strong year-over-year growth
• Startup mindset, social mission ethos. You’ll work with a team with experience at venture-backed startups, market-leading enterprise organizations, and everything in between. What brings us to this particular nonprofit is the recognition of a rare opportunity to drive massive positive impact in society

Due to the high volume of applications received, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.